


Beginning of a Memory

by clueing_for_looks



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: M/M, Secret Relationship, The Halcyon - Freeform, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9627143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clueing_for_looks/pseuds/clueing_for_looks
Summary: Toby knows, deep down, that they will be caught. Adil knows they won’t be.





	

During their first kiss, Adil had quickly grown accustomed to Toby grabbing different parts of his neck and face, running his hands over everything he could find. It was odd and strangely methodical, as though a sculptor was checking for imperfections. Fingers drew down his nose and over his cheekbones, an exploratory touch edged over his collar to touch his neck.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Adil said finally, after Toby’s thumbs were taking a bit too long to investigate his eyebrows.

Toby glanced up at him briefly. He overtly dragged a thumb over each eyebrow again, framing Adil’s face between his hands. He smiled – a terrifyingly bright and willing smile.

“I know you’re not,” he said, before fitting their mouths back together.

Adil tried not to overthink what was happening. He hadn’t done this in so long. He hadn’t done this at all with someone so enthusiastic. Toby’s fingers were behind his ears, feeling the shape of the tiny bones.

Exhilarating. Terrifying. Adil realised after a while that one of his hands was still clutching at Toby’s tie, the other disappearing under the hem of his waistcoat. He locked his hands behind his back.

He had expected Toby to pull away from him after a few seconds, perhaps ask Adil to leave so he could decompress. The only response he got was a long exhale, the breath hot on his own face.  

They broke apart after a minute or so, swaying on the spot like dancers. Toby’s hands drifted upwards again, his fingers running over Adil’s mouth.

“Are you going to paint me from memory or something?” Adil asked. It was an interesting feeling, having someone else’s fingers on your lips. Toby was smiling at him, their faces still close.

“Not a good idea, to keep any kind of record,” Toby said. “I’ll just have to remember.”

“You’ll see me every day,” Adil reminded him. “No remembering necessary.”

Toby said nothing for long moments before releasing his hold and stepping back. “I have to go to work now,” he said.

*

“That was –”

“Fantastic?” Toby suggested. “Interesting? Terrible?”

Adil was laying on his back, huffing breaths up to the ceiling.

“Definitely not terrible,” he said. They were fully clothed and laying on Toby’s bed, trying not to appear breathless with each other. Toby had come in from work an hour ago and Adil had forced himself to take the stairs extra slowly to keep from running.

“I’ve kissed people before,” Toby told him, catching his breath first. “But this is the first time…”

They had fallen backwards onto the bed, hands in each other’s hair, tugging shirts out of trousers and kicking off shoes. Just when things were getting unbearably good they both pulled away, slightly awkward.

Toby was looking at him with the same studious face he had when reading.

Adil brought up a hand and dragged him down for a kiss, holding him in place for a few seconds. When he let go Toby propped himself up on an elbow, staring at Adil intently.

“I want to remember you exactly like this,” he said, a wistful smile curving his mouth.

 “You won’t have to remember me,” Adil said, yet again. All of Toby’s happiness was tinged with insecurity, every smile chased by melancholy. “You’ll never have a chance to miss me.”

Toby kissed his cheek, smoothed a hand over his bare stomach. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said, seriously. “I miss you every second I’m not with you.”

*

Adil knocked on the door, keeping his body tight and professional. He was the barman for every single second until he got inside, until there were four walls and a door between them and the rest of the hotel.

The door was flung open and a hand dragged him in. Adil managed to keep the ‘ouch’ to himself as he was pushed against the wall.

“We said 8.30,” Toby said, the moment the door was closed. He brought up a hand and swept it over Adil’s features, left to right, following the curve of his eye sockets.

“We got an early delivery,” Adil replied, reaching out to touch Toby’s waist. “I had to supervise –”

“It’s almost ten O’clock.”

“I know but –”

“ _Ten O’clock_.”

Fingertips investigated the shape of his chin, the rise of his Adam’s apple. Adil sighed, leant back into the wall. He wondered how other couples felt when they were together, without the undertone of fear. He placed a hand on Toby’s neck and kissed him, gently.

“I’m here now,” he said.

*

Sometimes Adil fell asleep without meaning to, tucked into Toby’s side. He never stayed the night, always dutifully walking back to his tiny flat in the late evening. His mattress at home was an inch thick and had been his parents before his. Laying in clean sheets with a warm body was often impossible to resist.

“Fall asleep with me,” he mumbled more than once, eyes already shut.

Toby preferred to be alert, and often sat up with a book while Adil drifted. Only once had Adil asked if he was watching the door, but Toby had rolled his eyes and told him that no, he wasn’t that strange. He seemed to enjoy pushing his fingers through Adil’s hair while he read, and when they got up the first time he had laughed himself silly. Adil had spent twenty minutes in the bathroom, correcting the look.

“You should wear your hair like that all the time,” Toby said, his eyes bright. “The old dears at the bar would love it. You’d have half of London drooling, looking that debauched.” 

Adil had smiled, and let himself get messed up all over again.

*

“What are we going to do when they find out?” Toby said, without preamble. It was the twelfth day of their secret meetings and they were in Toby’s rooms, sitting side by side beneath the bed sheets. Toby had a cigarette between his fingers but kept forgetting to light it, putting it up to his lips and then down again. “I just want to know.”

Adil looked at him, surprised that the unsaid tension had finally been brought up. He sat up straighter against the headboard, shaking off his tiredness. “Are you planning to tell someone?”

“Of course not.”

“Then no one will find out.”

Toby snorted, his mouth tight and stressed. He had been dipping in an out of this mood for the last few hours, restless and unsure in his touches and looks. Adil had left him to his thoughts, waiting for it to pass.

It seemed, however, that the dark mood needed a vent.

Toby brought the unlit cigarette up to his mouth again, not bothering to look around for a lighter. The fingers of his other hand were fidgeting on top of the sheets.

“It’s going to be alright,” Adil said, turning until he could look Toby straight in the eye.

Toby glanced at him and then away, the cigarette bobbing between his lips. “It isn’t,” he said, taking the useless tobacco away and dropping it on the floor. “It isn’t going to be and you know it.”

“Toby –”

“Even if we do everything right, everything, they’re still going to get us, ruin us –”

“Stop it.”

Toby huffed out a breath. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, quietly. “How to make the most of it –”    

Adil shushed him, pushing a hand through Toby’s hair. “This isn’t your last night with me,” he said, calmly. “This isn’t the last touch, the last kiss, the last anything. This is our beginning.”

“But –”

“The door is locked. No one knows about us. You’re in here, safe, with me.”

Toby’s hand found his and then dropped it again, as if he couldn’t bear to hold it.

There was a moment of silence which Adil endured, watching Toby toy with the signet ring on his finger. He said nothing at all, almost able to see the gears whirling in Toby’s mind. He wondered if the fact that they were only partially clothed was making a difference to the panic attack, but there was no way to resolve it without getting out of the bed.

After a few minutes had passed, Toby dropped his head backwards against the headboard. It made a cracking sound that made Adil wince.

“It’s all going to be ok,” Adil said again, deciding that calm silence was not enough.    

“It isn’t, it isn’t,” Toby muttered, eyes closed and mouth pinched, as though in considerable pain. “People don’t _do_ things like this without being caught. My mother –”

“Will never know,” Adil said softly.

“She _will_ , you don’t know her. She loves gossip, and if there’s a story to be found –”

Adil bent down and pressed his mouth to Toby’s, silencing the words. When he drew back Toby followed him a few inches, keeping their faces close. His body was still coiled tight with anxiety, but the kiss seemed to have briefly disrupted it.

“The only people who know are the ones here, in this bed,” Adil said. “We are discreet. We take precautions. Your mother will never suspect.”

Toby dragged a hand over his face, covering his eyes. “She already suspects. Everyone does.”

Carefully, Adil tried to prize the hand away. Toby held fast, his fingers withstanding Adil’s gentle tugging. Giving up on eye contact, Adil settled his hand over Toby’s, his other sliding up his waist.

“Fear is making you paranoid.” He kept his hand high over Toby’s hipbone, careful not to slip lower.

“And you are not afraid?”

“No.”

“You’re lying. Lying to make me feel better.”

“Toby.” Adil pinched his fingertips until he let go, quickly grabbing the hand before it could return. Toby stared resolutely at the ceiling. “When I first saw you I didn’t think ‘homosexual.’ I didn’t think ‘unusual’ or ‘perverted’ or – or whatever it is you seem to think has been branded across your head.”

He smoothed the hand on Toby’s waist upwards, until it was pressed over his chest.

“What did you think?” Toby mumbled.

“I thought you looked awkward trying to drink shots of alcohol without gagging. I thought you looked happy when the singer on stage got the song muddled, because you secretly like a bit of disorder in amongst it all.” He brushed the hair out of Toby’s eyes, carefully.

“I thought how small you looked trailing after your father, and how charming you became when he was gone. You sat at the bar rather than by the dancefloor. You told me about Oxford.”

Toby’s eyes were searching his face, doubtful.  

“But you worked it out in the end,” he said, heart banging hard against Adil’s hand. “You saw the boring stuff, sure, but you also looked and saw this.”  He gestured at the fraction of space between them. “You were a stranger and you _guessed_. My mother, Freddie – they’ll see it. See us.”

Adil wasn’t so sure. He had seen the way Lady Hamilton’s eyes slipped over Toby, focusing on his baggy suit, his inky fingers, his badly knotted tie. She saw all the things he lacked, rather than what he possessed. Freddie was more intuitive but his mind was trapped in the cockpit nowadays, or in Emma’s arms.

Toby was relegated to the least exciting Hamilton, the footnote in a long line of important people. Except that in all ways that counted he was the most important. Adil laid his head on top of Toby’s chest, not wanting to show his expression.

“People can be blind when they want to be.”

Toby exhaled heavily, bringing up a distracted hand to card through Adil’s hair. The touch was repetitive and strong, and Adil wanted to close his eyes to savour it. “I’ll be the first member of my family to go to jail.”

“Then I’ll see you there,” Adil said around a yawn. Working all day and spending the evenings with Toby had predictable side effects.

Toby wrapped a hesitant hand around Adil’s shoulders, his grip becoming reassuringly tight.

“What time is it?” Adil asked.

“You’ve got a little longer.”

They must have fallen asleep like that because the next thing Adil knew he was being scared out of his mind by Toby’s alarm clock.

“W-what time did you set it for?” He asked, dashing out of the bed and ducking down to drag his socks on. “I’m so sorry, I should have gone home. If they see me leaving here –”

Toby sat up in bed, his hair flattened on one side. “It’s 5.15,” he said. He looked pale and half-asleep, his eyes still mostly shut. “I changed it so you’d have time to walk down before the maids are up.”

Adil stopped trying to smooth creases out of his trousers and took a breath. The light outside was weak and dewy, barely enough to illuminate the room. He walked forwards a step until he could lean down and kiss Toby on the forehead.

Toby tilted his head back until their mouths met, and Adil’s mind spent a happy few seconds thinking of nothing at all. He broke the kiss eventually, forcing his feet to take a step back.

“Or you could just stay here until your shift starts,” Toby suggested. “Use my bathroom, borrow my socks…”

Adil hesitated. Staying the night set a dangerous precedent. Their time together was becoming longer, more difficult to part with. He was here before work and after, and members of staff had begun to comment that he was getting to the hotel early, leaving late.

But Toby had never asked him to stay before.

He draped his trousers back over the chair and toed off his socks. “Thank you,” he said, softly.

Toby made a small sound that might have been ‘you’re welcome’ before burying himself back under the sheets.

*

“What do you think prison is like?” Toby asked. He was sitting on top of the bedcovers, fully clothed except for his feet and smoking. Adil flicked Toby’s knuckles, frustrated that the conversation had turned bleak.

“I thought tobacco was supposed to relax people.”

“I am relaxed.”

“You are not going to prison.”

“Humour me.”

Adil heaved a sigh, looking out of the windows. The net curtains obscured seeing out (or, more importantly, in) but Adil could still feel how bright the sunshine was. He spent all his days off inside now.

“What it would be like for you or for me?” he asked.

Toby took another drag, his eyes also on the window. “You,” he said.

It was a scenario that Adil had pictured a million times after his first kiss with a boy. He had spent many nights curled into a tight ball beneath the covers, trying to panic as quietly as possible so not to wake his siblings.

“I can’t image it’s good, being an Indian man in an English prison,” he said, keeping his tone light.

“What about an Indian man prosecuted for Unnatural Acts?”

Adil kept his smile in place. “I would tell everyone that I was in for theft. They’d love me in no time – I’d make the best hooch.”

Toby reached over and locked their fingers together, harder than required. “Oh yes, silly me. Here I was thinking you’d be found dead in your cell but no, of course, all the inmates _love_ a homosexual bartender.”

“Head bartender,” Adil corrected, his throat dry. “And you needn’t think of it.”

“Of course I do. Every touch, every kiss, every word between us is me signing your prison papers.”

“And me signing yours,” Adil replied.

“It’s a terrifying thought, isn’t it?”

Adil stroked a thumb over their joined hands, refusing to be rattled. “Only if it happens,” he said. “Which it won’t.”

Toby didn’t say anything. His cigarette finished and he let go of Adil’s hand to light another.

“If we had any sense we’d stop,” Toby said eventually, his eyes still on the window.

Something heavy and made of ice settled in Adil’s stomach. He tried to keep calm, fighting the urge to lash out or else start begging. He became aware that their legs were tangled in amongst the sheets and he could feel the toes of Toby’s foot pressing against his calf. Not letting his rapid heartbeat creep into his voice he asked: “Do you…want to stop?”

Each little toe, pressing against his leg. What would it be like to never feel that again? His hands were beginning to sweat.

“I don’t know,” Toby said. “I don’t know how to feel anymore. It’s this feeling – this feeling like I’m being crushed –” he blew out a plume of smoke. “I just…want you to live a long and happy life.”

“I will,” Adil promised, the tightness around his heart loosening. “We both will.”

After dropping his cigarette into the ashtray Toby rolled over and kissed him.

*

It was their fourteenth day together.

Toby was on his back, his smile stretching from ear to ear. “That – was – interesting,” he said, the words slightly breathless.   

 “Lady Theresa wouldn’t have done that to you,” Adil said smugly, crawling up his body to lay next to him. “Not unless you bought her a _very_ big engagement ring.”

“Don’t say her name aloud,” Toby moaned. “She’ll hear it and come bursting in here.”

“In that case I won’t.” Adil let himself enjoy the view, taking in Toby’s damp fringe, his wide eyes. “Did you know that you make the exact same face at the moment of passion as you do when you take a shot of alcohol?”

Toby flushed an interesting shade of pink. “Shut up,” he said mulishly.

Adil wondered how something so good had ever happened to two people.

*

It was the fifteenth day of their meetings and the first day of October.

Toby had pulled him into the room with a frantic “Oh, thank God,” pinning him to the wall.

“What? What is it?” Adil asked, allowing himself to be pulled by the hand and then grabbed again, Toby’s fingers sliding against his cheeks and ears.

“You live near Paddington,” Toby said. “A bomb dropped on a shelter and killed everyone inside.”

Their union was short and enthusiastic.

Adil stripped off completely, hanging each item up while Toby waited. They met, naked, in a fumble of arms and mouths, tumbling onto the bed.

 _He thought I was dead_ , Adil mused, as Toby attempted to touch him everywhere. _He thought I was dead in a pile of rubble and he wouldn’t have been able to grieve_.

“I’m alive” he said, as if saying it made it more true. “I’m here.”

Toby pulled back, staring at him. “I know you are,” he said quietly, pushing a kiss against the corner of Adil’s mouth.

*

He couldn’t resist, at the door. They wouldn’t even be apart for long, as Toby often sat at the bar, reading or making notes.

But still he reached out and took the watch, running a thumb down Toby’s cheekbone.

*

Adil was almost knocked off his feet when Toby found him. It was only minutes after he had left the upstairs room, and he grinned when they collided.

His good mood faded instantly when Toby clutched his arm. The expression on his face was one of pure horror, like he had the entire German army at his heels.

“W – what?” Adil stammered, putting the empty bottles onto a shelf in case he dropped them.

Toby stared at him, his face sickly white.

“Is it Freddie? Is he –”

“He knows, he knows, he _saw_ ,” Toby blurted. It took Adil a few seconds to decode the words as there was no space or breath between any of them. Adil put his hands on Toby’s tense shoulders, giving them a tiny shake.

“Who saw what?” he said, as calmly as possible.

“Mr D’Abberville!” Toby said, his grip on Adil’s arm getting tighter by the second. “He saw _us_. You left – but then the watch – and he was behind me when I turned – he saw you _touch_ me…”

Adil’s heart stopped, briefly.

“Alright,” Adil heard himself say. “Alright, it’s alright.”

Toby’s shoulders were shaking under his hands, as if they were reacting to extreme cold. His eyes had slipped shut, his chin dipped.

Adil took him by the wrist and dragged him quickly the length of the staff corridor, opening the pantry door. He pushed Toby inside and shut the door behind them, tucking a mop against the handle for good measure.

“What exactly did he see?” Adil asked, trying to think logically. Panic was pulsing in his stomach like a sickness but he fought it off. One of them had to take control.

“Does it matter?” Toby asked. He had sunk down onto a box of soap powder, clutching his hands together as though in prayer. “He saw enough. I’m so s-”

“What _exactly_?”

“You, coming out of my room. Me, handing you your watch. You…” he brought his fingers up to his cheek, mimicking the touch from earlier.

So somebody knew, Adil tried to think slowly. They had been careful but not careful enough. Specifically, _he_ had ruined it. Toby was still shuddering, despite meshing his fingers together between his knees.  

“It can be explained away,” Adil tried, but Toby shook his head roughly, his eyes wide.

“No, you didn’t see him, the way he looked at me. He looked…disgusted and…I don’t know. Something else.”

Sadness was battling to replace fear in Adil’s stomach. He gestured Toby to join him and reluctantly Toby stood, shuffling closer.

Adil put his arms around his waist.

“We’re going to fix it,” he said. He tried to push every ounce of acting skill he had into that line. It was the voice he used with very drunk aristocrats, firm and reassuring.

Toby’s forehead knocked against his, their breath mingling. “I can’t lose this,” Toby said. “I knew we would but I can’t – I can’t –”  

“You won’t,” Adil said, softly. “You won’t lose me.”

Toby kissed him like he was trying to pull something from Adil’s soul, his hands strong and fast, tugging on his collar, his hair, his chin…Adil pulled back, pressing a hard kiss to Toby’s cheek and letting the taller boy drop his head onto his shoulder.

“You won’t lose me,” he said again, trying to make himself believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on episodes 5 and 6, as well as the Halcyon QA on Twitter. 
> 
> Q: Is there anything about Toby that you don’t like?  
> Akshay Kumar (who plays Adil): Toby’s a real – he worries a lot. He’s a real worrier. He’s a realist and I think for us the situation is obviously…he feels like it’s not going well, or they both have a sense of that. But yeah he’s a real worrier and I think Adil’s just like ‘calm down, it’ll be alright, it’s cool I’ve got this’. Toby’s like no…the world’s going to end and all that kind of stuff but yeah, other than that – he’s perfect. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
